What is a dietitian?
Dietitians are to ensure that they always work to the highest standard. Since Dietitians specialize in translating scientific information about nutrition and food into practical dietary advice. As well as providing impartial advice about nutrition and health, dietitians also advise about food-related problems and treat disease and ill health. Dietitians are responsible for the nutritional management of both pediatric and adults particularly elderly and critically ill patients. The dietitian provides expert enteral and parenteral nutrition for critically ill patients requiring dependency on Mechanical Ventilator dependent patients. Dietitian meets patients, the family of the patient, doctors taking care of the patient, and consultants treating the patients and coordinate with the Food Services department of the hospital to provide excellent and safe diet to patients.at South City Hospital Dietary services are available in clinics for OPD and in-patients.
Acute Dietitian Service. The acute dietetic team sees adult hospital patients who are referred via the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST). Malnutrition is a common condition in hospital patients which needs identification and treatment in order to reduce recovery time and complications. Patients seen on the wards are both acutely and chronically ill, with various types of nutritional issues. This includes patients with long-term chronic conditions such as coeliac disease, diabetes, and COPD and also patients who are more acutely unwell, offering dietetic support post-surgery or assessing when alternative types of feeding are required, such as tube feeding.
Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST) – All patients are nutritionally screened on admission to the hospital by the nursing staff using the MUST tool. This tool assesses the patient’s weight, nutritional intake, history of weight loss, and clinical condition Patients that score as at high risk of malnutrition or need dietetic input are referred to a dietitian for nutritional assessment and advice.
Fast Track Pathway – This is a specialized system to allow patients who have been identified as nutritionally ‘at risk’ to be supported during their stay in the hospital. It consists of an FTP replacing the usual meal tray used to serve the patient’s meals. This identifies the patient to staff and highlights that they may need more support and encouragement at mealtimes.
Patients who may benefit from the FTP pathway include:
- Patients with a high MUST score
- New patients to wards (especially if undernourished)
- Patients who are slow to finish their meals or need encouragement
- Patients with nausea or vomiting
- Patients who have issues with their swallowing
- Patients with physical/mental disabilities
- Those who need assistance with eating and drinking
If family members feel that their relative would benefit from the FTP system then they can request for the system to be implemented.
Discharge Services – Patients who continue to need dietetic support following discharge from the hospital will be supported and can be seen in outpatients clinics here at the hospital or by the community dietetic team. There are several general outpatient clinic sessions at the OPD of the Hospital for adult patients.
There are multiple outpatient clinic sessions at the Hospital OPD, but we will see individuals on appointment. We also work closely with pediatricians, the children’s community nursing team, speech and language therapists, and health visiting services.
Dietitians for Diabetes.
The diabetes team sees:
- Children and adolescents who have been diagnosed with diabetes are followed up from the date of diagnosis.
- Transition clinics are run to enable teenagers with diabetes to move through into adult services.
- Antenatal services for women with Type 1 & 2 or Gestational Diabetes
Referrals:
- Adults are accepted by Hospital Consultants, Diabetes specialists, and health-conscious persons.
Diabetes dietitians can provide individualized nutritional information, advice, and support for diabetes in conjunction with other medical conditions that require dietary advice. Education around carbohydrate counting for patients with a variety of insulin regimes.
Attendants’ Diet services:
South City Hospital, apart from patients always focused on family and attendants of the patients and continental, oriental, and special food services are available in the courtyard and garden cafeteria and room service is never less available.
MUST Scoring: this consists of 5 simple steps:
- Measure the Height and Weight of a Patient to Get a BMI Score.
- Note the Percentage of Unplanned Weight Loss and Score.
- Establish Acute Disease Effect and Score.
- Calculate the Final Score.
- Use the Guidelines to Decide on the Next Steps.
